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Oakley and Motorola launch RAZRWIRE Bluetooth Sunglasses
Put two cool branded products together – Motorola mobiles and Oakley sunglasses – and what do you get?
A pair of daft glasses more likely to bring forth guffaws of laughter rather then the intended gasps of admiration, that’s what.
Oakley’s new RAZRWIRE sunspecs feature a bolted on Bluetooth module which converges the sun-filtering UV-free lifestyle experience with, err, a phone.
Cos Lykos, vice president of business development at Oakley, set off several Hyperbole Alerts as he gushed wildly about the product: “RAZRWIRE’s fully integrated design takes advantage of the world’s best eyewear and wireless technologies to give freedom of life, movement and communication anywhere and everywhere you want to be, so now seeing and hearing is believing.”
If you’re excited by the prospect of wandering about talking into your sunglasses looking like an arse, we can report that RAZRWIRE specs includes a Motorola Bluetooth module, supporting Bluetooth 1.1 and 1.2, with a range or 30 feet (10 metres).
The Bluetooth box clamps on to one of the arms of the sunglasses and sports volume controls and an answer button on its lower edge.
You’ll also be able to impress people by saying that you have to go off and charge your sunglasses, via the included wall charger or a USB port, with the device offering five hours talk time and 100 hours standby time.
The sunglasses are fashioned from Oakley’s super light O-Luminum and XYZ Optics, and will be available in early August in Cingular Wireless stores, and online at Oakley, Motorola, and Cingular’s websites for US$294.99 (~£170, ~€246).
Users in the habit of regularly sitting on their sunglasses in the pub are advised to avoid this product.
Our verdict: As cool as a heatwave!
Motorola and Oakley Announce Launch of RAZRWIRE With Cingular Wireless
26 July, 2005
Motorola’s Q RAZR Smartphone Guns For Blackberry / Treo
Billed as the “thinnest, lightest, coolest QWERTY on the Planet”, the new Q phone from Motorola has set a few hearts pounding in Chez Digi-Lifestyles.
Claimed to be fifty percent thinner than its top competitors, the lightweight Q is based on Motorola’s successful RAZR-thin design and offers a full QWERTY keyboard, electro-luminescent keys, one-handed navigation thumbwheel and an internal antenna.
The device sports a large high-resolution display (320 x 240 pixels, 65K TFT) with a l.3 mega pixel still/video camera (with photo lighting) onboard, and the whole caboodle is powered by the new Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system.
The Moto Q comes stuffed with multimedia support, playing back iMelody, MIDI, MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA, WAX, QCELP audio files, GIF87a, GIF89a, JPEG, WBMP, BMP, PNG photo files and supports H.263, MPEG-4, GSM-AMR, AAC, WMV video formats.
There’s a Mini-SD slot provided for extra storage and connectivity is taken care of via Bluetooth, IrDA and mini-USB.
High flying execs too busy to even touch their Moto will appreciate the voice-activated dialling, hands-free multi-tasking, speakerphone and built-in support for Microsoft Exchange 2003.
Ron Garriques, president mobile devices business, Motorola wasn’t one to hold back the hysterical hyperbole: “Wickedly cool – when’s the last time you heard those words used to describe a QWERTY device?”
“Probably never. At least until now.”
“With the Moto Q, we’ve combined the best voice, data and design technology in one ultra-thin, intelligent, hard-working, and incredibly must-have device. Today’s office space has the potential to be any place you want it to be with Q.”
Err, thanks for that Ron. But we won’t be calling a QWERTY device “wickedly cool” until it comes with built in Wi-Fi.
The Moto Q is expected to be available in Q1 2006.
Although it’s clearly trying to get a piece of the lucrative Blackberry market, we reckon the collars will be getting sweatiest around the Palm Treo boardroom.
And that’s not a very pleasant thought.
Moto Q phone
26 July, 2005
Mac Mini Overheating Issues?
What with the summer in full swing, and the weather in the good old UK being as warm as it has been, I have observed some serious heat issues while using my Mac Mini.
On particularly warm nights, the fan never seems to switch itself off, and seeing as it’s in my bedroom, I have to switch the computer off so I can sleep.
It’s also my Web server (I’m on a budget, get over it!), and so this means my Website is unavailable on warm nights. This fan issue is also accompanied with terrible performance, and occasional freezes and crashes, which is something that never otherwise really happens on a Mac.
At first, I had put it down to my Mac simply not running as well as it used to for whatever reason, but today it’s been considerably cooler because it’s rained, and all of a sudden my Mac Mini is running perfectly again.
Whether this issue is widespread or not isn’t clear at this point, but I for one, can vouch for the inability of this computer to run properly in hot weather. Is it Apple’s way of getting people to go outside on a hot day, or is it simply Apple cutting costs and making sub-standard products? Who knows, but I sure find it irritating not to be able to check my emails reliably on a hot day!
So, word of warning: Either pack your air conditioning unit along with your Mac for those warm days, or forget using your Mini when the sun’s shining.
Makes me want an iFridge ;-)
Is this a one off or have you had problems with this too? Get in touch and let us know.
22 July, 2005
Microsoft Vista Announced
After a morning of fishwife-hot rumours, it’s been officially announced that the next version of Microsoft Windows – previously code-named Longhorn – will be known as Microsoft Vista.
Although wags are already suggesting that the word might apply to the distant view of the product consumers will get for many months/years, Microsoft remains confident of an ontime release in the second half of next year.
Naturally, a big new product needs a suitably uplifting tag line, so the cappuccino-supping, flipchart-flapping, brainstormin’ visioneers at Redwood have come up with:
“MicrosoftVista. Clear, Confident, Connected: Bringing clarity to your world.”
The story was first broken by anonymous sources close to the company (that generally covers anyone from the cleaner to the guy who delivers the water cooler) who revealed that Microsoft had unveiled their new name in Atlanta during the company’s internal sales event, known as the Microsoft Global Sales Briefing (that’s ‘MGB’ to those in the know).
Possibly because of a fear of failing to release the product in the year bearing its name, Microsoft has once again shied away from its earlier practice of releasing dated operating systems (Windows95, Windows98 etc).
The current major version of Windows originally regaled under the name of ‘Whistler’ during development before being christened WindowsXP prior to its public release.
Brad Goldberg, a Microsoft product manager, said that the first beta of Vista is slated for release on Aug. 3 and will be targeted at developers and IT professionals.
Goldberg stated that Vista’s three design goals include better security, new ways to organize information, and seamless connectivity to external devices.
A second test release is anticipated to be debuted before Vista’s full release next year.
More details about the new operating system’s features will be announced on August 3.
Video of whooping Microsoft Execs
22 July, 2005
Laptops Being Packed By More Holidaymakers
Feebly posing as some sort of independent study into the portable computer use, a recent US survey commissioned by Intel reveals that 34 per cent of respondents or their families have taken a laptop PC with them on vacation, with just over half likely to take a laptop PC on a future vacation. Oh that’s lucky … aren’t Intel involved with laptops in some way?
The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive discovered that the three most popular uses for a laptop PC while on holiday checking personal e-mail (72 per cent); playing movies, music and games (56 per cent); and gathering trip information online (45 per cent).
Despite being on their happy hols, 43 per cent used their laptops for of checking and sending work-related email.
The growth of compact, wireless-enabled laptop PCs [cue: another plug for Intel Centrino here] and hotspots have made it easier for globe trotters to taunt their office-bound chums back home with beach photos, as well as keep in touch with work, news, sports and grab local information.
“The survey results show that mobile technology is making it easy for travellers to research destinations, be entertained and stay in touch with family and friends while away from home,” said Ralph Bond, Intel consumer education manager, rudely cut out before another plug for Intel Centrino products could be delivered.
The survey also discovered that Hawaiian shirt-toting holidaymakers rated a long battery life (62 per cent), lightweight design (58 per cent) and Wi-Fi (55 per cent) as the most valuable features for a holiday latop. Wow … isn’t that what Centrino’s good at?
Of course, seasoned PC users have dragged laptops around with them for years on end, with many of the early adoptin’ cognoscenti choosing to travel even lighter by using PocketPCs/smartphones for keeping in touch while away from home.
With the growth of iPods, digital wallets and teensy weensy portable hard drives, keen photographers no longer need to lug around a laptop to back up their images, while Wi-Fi enabled PDAs – like the Palm LifeDrive – mean that travellers can access the Internet in-between splashes of sun tan oil and leave more room in their bags for essentials.
Like beer.
We would have provided you with a link to the survey but the page on the Intel site is 404ing.
21 July, 2005
vPod: Apple Closer To iPod Video Player?
The rurmour mill continues to hum with speculation that Apple are set to introduce a video playing iPod-like device in the near future.
Apple are already said to be talking to major music labels like Warner, EMI, Vivendi, Universal Music and Sony BMG about acquiring licenses to sell music videos through their hugely popular iTubes online store.
The videos are expected to start appearing on Apple’s online store in September at US$1.99 per download (~£1.15~€1.54)
The Business 2.0 blog reports that Apple is trying to strike similar deals with Disney, ABC News and ESPN.
As ever, Apple are keeping Mum on any proposed new hardware, although Steve Jobs has already commented about how the current iPod screen isn’t ideal for watching videos.
This has led to speculation that the company will be revising the iPod to create something like the ‘vPod’, a concept device created by design firm Pentagram which was published in Business 2.0 Magazine in March.
The magazine’s mocked-up machine looked like a version of the classic white iPod, stretched out to accommodate a wide-format screen.
An oversized iPod form would be unlikely to find favour with Jobs as he has already dismissed larger devices such as the Creative Portable Media Center for being too bulky and cumbersome to be a truly convenient portable player.
In fact Jobs has adamantly said ‘no” to video on several occasions, commenting in October that video on the iPod is “the wrong direction to go … there’s no content” and competitors providing video are “digging in the wrong place.”
Trouble is, Jobs is well known for trying to confuse competitors with double speak and bluff – he made much the same negative claims about Flash-based music players before releasing the Shuffle.
For many, the smart money is on Apple leaving the iPod as it is and introducing a completely different video player that will aim to grab the public’s imagination in the same manner as the iPod captured the music download market by the MP3s.
The big problem with trying to create a multimedia device is that people demand quite different things for mobile audio and video.
Music listeners want a small device that can fit into their sweaty jogging pants, while video buffs want a big wide screen for their moves that won’t be obscured by a few flakes of popcorn.
How Apple can resolve this quandary and come up with a competition-crushing compromise is anyone’s guess, but B2.0 editor Paul Sloan feels confident that they’ll manage it:
“If the past is any measure of what’s to come, Jobs will enter the arena late (as he did with the iPod) only to leapfrog over the competition with some entirely different device. And that could leave everyone from Microsoft’s Bill Gates to Sony’s Howard Stringer once again racing to copy their far smaller rival.”
Business 2.0
20 July, 2005
PC Sales Soars, Apple Hits 4.7% US Market Share
The doomsayers were predicting a slow year for PC shipments, but a continuing shift to notebooks and falling PC prices have made it a bumper second quarter for the worldwide PC market, according to research companies IDC and Gartner.
IDC’s figures reveal that PC vendors have shifted 46.6 million units in the second quarter, up from 39.9 million units last year, while Gartner claims that 48.9 million PCs were shipped during the quarter, up from 42.6 million units last year.
The disparity in the figures is due to the different ways in which the companies record “white-box” shipments (lesser brand PCs sold by local distributors or resellers).
Both analysts have confirmed Apple’s zippy growth in the US market, where it has risen to become the fourth biggest PC manufacturer in the land of Budweiser.
Dell still sits proud as King Of The PC Hill in the US, with shipments growing 23.7 per cent from last year, while the company now holds 19.3 per cent of the worldwide market according to IDC.
Gartner’s figures differ again, showing Dell with 17.9 per cent of the global market.
HP remained in second place with 15.6 per cent of the market (IDC) – 14.6 per cent according to Gartner.
The company enjoyed big sales outside the US and remains the market share leader in many countries throughout Europe.
The new Lenovo-owned IBM business ranked third in worldwide shipments with 7.6 per cent of the market, while Acer impressed with a shipment growth of 62 per cent compared to last year.
Gateway and Apple grew much faster than Dell or HP in the States, coming in at third and fourth place respectively in the US market.
Boosted by their success with iPod and iTunes, Apple’s US market share reached 4.5 per cent, up from 3.7 per cent at the same time last year.
Overall, Apple’s shipments grew 37 per cent year-on-year quarter, against a worldwide industry growth of 16.6 per cent, according to IDC (14.8 per cent by Gartner’s figures).
Laptops Out Sell Desktops In US
MacWorld
19 July, 2005
Konica Minolta And Sony To Make Digital SLR (dSLR) Cameras
Konica Minolta and Sony Corporation have reached an agreement to jointly develop digital Single Lens Reflex (dSLR) cameras.
The move strikes us as a logical one – Konica Minolta has a long record of producing high quality professional and semi-professional SLR cameras, while Sony has excelled in the digital camera consumer market.
Konica Minolta have already acquired a fine reputation through the autofocus and auto-exposure technologies developed in their Maxxum/Dynax series of film and digital dSLR and, like Sony, are keen to incorporate new technologies in their products (or “push the envelope” in marketing wallah-speak).
As we reported yesterday, Konica Minolta’s are already applying innovation to the burgeoning dSLR market with their new Maxxum/Dynax 5D camera being the first sub $1,000 dSLR to incorporate onboard Anti-Shake technology.
With Sony bringing their award-winning design expertise to the party – and their image sensor, image processing and battery technologies – we can expect some smarty-pants new product design to emerge from the partnership.
The new SLR cameras will see Sony/Minolta shoving a highly competitive oar inbetween the market leaders Canon and Nikon and marks Sony’s first foray into the high end digital dSLR camera market.
Previously, Sony had concentrated on the consumer/enthusiast segment, producing cheap and cheerful cameras for the masses and innovative, upmarket fixed-lens cameras like the well received F717 and F828 Cybershot models.
As prices of dSLR’s plummeted, the writing was on the wall for high-end fixed-lens models, so Sony’s move into the dSLR market was not unexpected.
Acording to IDC, the worldwide digital SLR market totaled 2.5 million units in 2004, and Sony and Konica Minolta have predicted that they expect this to grow to 3.6 million units this year.
And now kindly stand back while the execs get backslappy on the love mat:
“Sony has powerful devices and technologies essential for digital cameras,” praised Tsuyoshi Miyachi, President and CEO of Konica Minolta Photo Imaging. “I am extremely excited to work with Sony. Together with Sony, we will endeavour to create new value in the field of imaging through increasing attractiveness of digital SLR cameras where we are strongly focused.”
“We are excited to co-develop new products with Konica Minolta’s advanced camera technologies represented by its “Maxxum/Dynax series” and our digital audio visual technologies,” smooched Yutaka Nakagawa, Sony’s Executive VP and Personal Audio Visual Network Company NC President. “Sony will further strengthen its digital imaging business through creating new market opportunities with the digital SLR camera field.”
Both companies will immediately begin joint development of the “advanced and feature-rich digital SLR cameras” although there’s no date set for when we may view the fruit of their corporate loins.
We can tell you, however, that the new cameras will use the Konica Minolta lens mount system, which will no doubt please current Minolta owners.
19 July, 2005
Dynax/Maxxum 5D dSLR From Konica Minolta Adds Anti-Shake
It wasn’t that long ago that digital dSLRs were the sole preserve of well-heeled enthusiasts and the pestering paparazzi, but with prices continuing to fall, digital dSLRs are coming within the reach of the mainstream.
Canon started the revolution, slapping down a hefty gauntlet in the face of their competitors when they introduced their 6.3 megapixel Canon EOS 300D (aka Digital Rebel) in 2003 for around US$1,000 (~£572, ~€828).
The camera immediately found favour with amateur snappers, semi-pros and some newspaper reporters, who wanted the immediacy and flexibility of a single lens reflex camera without the eye-watering price of a pro camera.
Nikon took some time to respond, but hit back hard with the Nikon D70, a well-specified camera that offered the same resolution as the Canon, but with a more comprehensive feature set – and a lightning fast start up time (often the bane of digital cameras).
Pentax, Olympus and Minolta also weighed in with affordable dSLRS and consumers got happier as prices kept on falling.
In February this year, Canon returned with its cheaper-faster-more featured next generation 8 megapixel camera, the EOS350D (Digital Rebel XT) retailing for US$880 (~£503, ~€728) while Nikon’s similarly priced D50 was introduced in April.
Trying to wedge their elbow into the highly competitive and lucrative affordable dSLR market is Konica Minolta’s new Dynax/Maxxum 5D digital SLR, announced last Friday
Aimed more at the beginner market, it’s a smaller and lighter version of their Maxxum 7D camera, with fewer external controls, a bright 2.5″ display, “easy and intuitive” operation and a shedload of exposure presets on hand.
The highlight of the camera is Konica Minolta’s unique in-camera Anti-Shake system, which works by stabilising the sensor instead of the lens element.
This can be of real benefit when shooting in low light and gives the Dynax/Maxxum 5D digital SLR a real edge over their rivals, and it’s the first time this system-wide feature has been seen on a sub US$1,000 dSLR.
The rest of the specs of the camera are impressive but not cutting edge: 6.1 megapixel sensor, JPEG and RAW image capture (RAW: 3 fps, up to 5 frames), white-balance bracketing, 100-3200 ISO, built-in pop flash and USB 2.0.
With its bigger name rivals winning plaudits for their new budget dSLRS, it may be hard for new punters to be won over to Konica Minolta’s new offering, although it looks like a winner for those already using Minolta bayonet mount lenses.
Maxxum 5D will be available in early August, with pricing yet to be announced.
Konica Minolta
18 July, 2005
Vodafone: Women Can Use Mobile Phones Shock
With a survey that could be described as pointless fluff at best and patronising drivel at worst, Vodafone D2 have trotted out the details of their ‘Women and Mobile Phones’ market research survey.
After interviewing 1,044 female mobile phone users aged between 14 and 49, Vodafone produced the astonishing conclusion that women are informed mobile phone users who know what they want.
Gosh! Whatever next? Women like food too?
The April 2005 survey, undertaken by GfK, apparently confirmed that women are confident mobile phone users with a “sound knowledge and overview of mobile communications when buying mobile phones, using handsets and services and in many daily mobile communication applications.”
In other words, they can use mobile phones just like everyone else.
After wading through pages of the depressing minutiae contained in the report, I can reveal that one-third of women trust their own judgment when buying a phone, with the rest asking their husband, boyfriend, or a sales assistant (lesbians don’t seem to exist in this survey).
Vodafone’s survey tells us that women – just like the other half of the human race – are price conscious, with the operator’s tariff being ranked as the most important criteria (71 percent) for purchase, followed by the handset price (66 percent)
The report claimed to be “surprised” that the ‘typical female’ criterion of colour was only accorded a priority ranking of eleven out of a total of sixteen criteria.
Predictably, the most used functions were text messages (92 percent), alarm clock function (72 percent), calendar (56 percent) and ring tones (50 percent).
Neatly half of women use the camera on their phone with 37 percent of respondents citing the provision of Bluetooth for wireless data transfer as important.
In another startlingly obvious conclusion, the survey reveals that games are used most frequently by the 14-19 years age group, and that camera, video and music functions are becoming “increasingly popular.”
Wow. I bet you didn’t know that.
The report seems almost disappointed that the ladies weren’t lining up to register their approval of pretty pink phones with sparkly bits on, with half of all respondents stating that mobile phone accessories are unnecessary ‘fashion gimmicks.’
Plumbing the absolute depths of irrelevant detail, the survey found that more than half of the women said that their favourite place for making mobile calls is a comfortable sofa, with 43 percent sitting on the patio or balcony and 31 percent preferring to make calls in bed. Fascinating stuff!
There’s even a bit at the end where the report tries to link the impact of mobiles on relationships between men and women, but we’d just about lost the will to live by then.
And so the report drones on in a never-ending stream of dreary stats of little consequence to anyone – and with no comparative stats for men’s mobile phone usage, this survey is not only one of the dullest we’ve ever read (and boy, we’ve seen some corkers!), it’s completely meaningless too.
Vodafone survey
15 July, 2005